Question how to repair HDD

[ruggb]

I have 2x 2TB HDDs in a NAS. They were configured as a Raid. I copied everything and proceeded to attempt to reconfigure as separate volumes. I got to a point of 2 drives but one was still thinking it was in raid and therefore complained that it was failed, I think. There was no problem with them prior to this.
I removed them to try to reformat on my computer. So far I have tried everything I have to delete all the partitions and recreate a simple partition, but according to Diskpart, Partition Wizard, Linux fdisk and Spinrite there is still a a sector at the beginning that is "in use" and I can't get rid of it.
I assume because of that I can't successfully create a single partition on the drives and get it formatted NTFS.

Any suggestions about what to do now would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

What type RAID array, 0 or 1?

Which NAS? You should be able to do whatever reconfig in the NAS software.

 

[dwd999]

Worst case scenario you could use some type of disk wiping program (e.g. DBAN, Killdisk) to start wiping the disk. You shouldn't have to wipe the whole disk if the sector in use is at the beginning of the disk. You could start the wiping process and stop it after a minute which should achieve a wipe of the offending sector. Then you should be able to use a gparted type program to check the disk and just make sure that there's nothing and its labeled as a gpt device. There shouldn't be any partitioning or formating beyond the gpt designation as most NAS boxes are designed to do that themselves with whatever version of linux they're using. Once you restart your NAS box it should do everything needed to partition and format the 2 separate drives itself.

 

[fzabkar]

In DMDE, just toggle MBR Off or GPT Off. That should instantly invalidate sector 0.

https://dmde.com/

Reboot so that Windows can re-examine the drives.

 

[ruggb]

In DMDE, just toggle MBR Off or GPT Off. That should instantly invalidate sector 0.

https://dmde.com/

Reboot so that Windows can re-examine the drives.

Thanks, I was unaware of DMDE. QUESTION, I am running DMDE now to fill the disk with 0s. It is up to 15% at this point but continues to stop because the drive goes off line. After a few seconds it comes back on line and I can retry it and it proceeds. Sometimes it continues for a long time, other times it goes back off line within a second b4 I can click retry. I am trying to figure out why it is doing that.
I just hit one spot that took 5 clicks to get past but it did not retry the same LBA so I am thinking the stopping is due to errors on the disk and not a power or connection issue.
Any thoughts on that?

 

[fzabkar]

Your zero-fill operation appears to be stalling due to hardware errors. Examine the drive's SMART report. Look for reallocated, pending or uncorrectable sectors. If it's a Seagate, check the Command Timeout attribute.

 

[mundial]

In DMDE, just toggle MBR Off or GPT Off. That should instantly invalidate sector 0.

https://dmde.com/

Reboot so that Windows can re-examine the drives.

Sounds like a great tip Fzabkar but what purpose does invalidating sector 0 serve?

 

[fzabkar]

Sounds like a great tip Fzabkar but what purpose does invalidating sector 0 serve?

Sector 0 contains boot code and partitioning information. A valid MBR has a 0x55AA signature at the very end. If this signature is not present, Windows knows that the data in sector 0 is rubbish ("invalid"), and you can then use Disk Management to set up the drive as you would a new one.

The "MBR Off" button in DMDE invalidates the signature. That's all.

 

[ruggb]

Your zero-fill operation appears to be stalling due to hardware errors. Examine the drive's SMART report. Look for reallocated, pending or uncorrectable sectors. If it's a Seagate, check the Command Timeout attribute.

I plan to do that when it is done. It is up to 44% now and has not quit in a couple of hours. Maybe it is past all the errors and fixed them. I think the errors were generated in attempting to regress a Synology SHR drive to a basic drive. So they should not be due to a hardware failure. I will have to run the 2nd drive thru the same process. as it still thinks it is an SHR drive and that it is damaged - because the other drive is not there, but there is nothing on it at this time except the DSM OS.

 

[ruggb]

It made it completely thru the zero write. The problem now is I can't format it.
I tried cleaning it with diskpart. That seemed to make it worse.
Now disk manager won't allow me to create a simple volume. It is unallocated.
Sometimes it says that it is Healthy (GPT Protective Partition) with a size of 16384.00 GB - it is only a 2TB drive, but Diskpart does not flag it as GPT. Either way I can't do anything with it in Disk Manager.
The first sector is flagged as "inuse" space by Spinrite.
DMDE doesn't even see it now.
Diskpart still sees it, but won't do anything with it because it is not a dynamic disk.
Is there any way to get this operational again?

 

[fzabkar]

Spinrite is a drive killer. Please avoid it.

Deconstructing SpinRite:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=181&t=2929

The 16TiB capacity suggests that the drive is in an external enclosure with a sector size of 4096 bytes. The drive itself appears to be reporting a capacity of 2TiB (not 2TB), which indicates that it is now dead. Had you examined the SMART report before starting your zero-fill operation, you would probably have seen lots of bad sectors.

 

[ruggb]

no, it did not show any bad sectors in the smart report and it is just sitting on my desk connected to a power brick and thru a sata to USB adapter.